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Professor Laura Spira reports no link between board diversity and profitability (Letters, July 2). Good. Why should there be? Diversity must be implemented positively — if the research proves no link, then diversity won’t harm businesses either. The elites in charge will open their organisations to take advantage of a bigger pool of diverse people,

Two former health secretaries, Sajid Javid and Jeremy Hunt, on Sunday announced bids to stand as Conservative party leader with pledges to slash taxes in an effort to win support from MPs. A total of nine candidates have now announced they will stand to replace Boris Johnson as UK prime minister, with more expected to

Titled “Something to make you smile”, the email from art collector Lisa Perry contained a photo of a Niki de Saint Phalle sculpture. The exuberant, blue-bodied figure, recently installed in Perry’s Villefranche-sur-Mer garden, was shown in close-up, centred on its bountiful, swimming-costumed bottom. “Niki did everything with humour,” says Perry from her Long Island home,

One of the leading contenders to succeed Boris Johnson as prime minister has said he will not stand in the forthcoming leadership contest, as other Conservative MPs prepare to launch their campaigns. Defence secretary Ben Wallace was the favourite among the Tory grassroots, with a net approval rating of +86 among party members according to

My personal style signifier is a teeny platinum and diamond cross necklace I’ve worn for more than 20 years. It gets tangled in whatever else I add, but it’s a gentle reminder of my faith and the people who gave it to me, my in-laws. With five kids I can’t be changing my jewellery every day.  The last

Rishi Sunak, who quit as Boris Johnson’s chancellor this week, launched his bid to lead the Conservative party on Friday with a pledge that he will avoid “comforting fairy tales”. His video to launch his campaign appeared a coded attack on what many MPs have seen as the prime minister’s Panglossian approach to policy. “Someone

Eurozone banks are poorly equipped to measure the risks of global warming on their loan books and underestimate the losses they are likely to suffer, the European Central Bank’s debut climate stress test has found. The ECB said a figure of €70bn of losses from the short-term impact of higher carbon emission prices and extreme

We are going back to the 1970s — a relentlessly awful decade. This is becoming a consensus view in the investment community — and one that will only gain steam now there may be a crisis election à la 1974 — the one which gave us a hung parliament. But look a little closer at

Boris Johnson has announced his “painful” resignation but defied pressure to step down immediately as prime minister, insisting he would remain in office until a new Conservative party leader is chosen. In an address in front of No 10 Downing Street, after days of turmoil and mass resignations from his government, he accused his party

British business leaders on Thursday welcomed Boris Johnson’s decision to resign as a chance to end recent political instability, calling for a swift transition to a new administration to help companies cope with soaring inflation and the threat of recession. Lord Stuart Rose, former M&S boss and Conservative peer, called for the prime minister to

The International Energy Agency has warned that China’s dominance of the solar panel supply chain could slow the global transition to cleaner energy. An IEA report on the issue, the first of its kind by the organisation, found that China’s share in the manufacturing stages for solar, from the production of polysilicon to the panels

Sajid Javid launched a devastating critique of Boris Johnson in the House of Commons as he told MPs why he quit as health secretary, warning that “the problem starts at the top” with the prime minister. Javid triggered an avalanche of ministerial resignations when he stepped down on Tuesday evening, including chancellor Rishi Sunak —

Many of us are middle managers — with a team to run, but also working below our own boss higher up the corporate ladder. Additionally, we may need to manage “across” the organisation with peers on different teams. The middle is frequently an uncomfortable place to be, through the demands made on us from above

Joe Biden is facing a dilemma: on the one hand, he is under pressure to help Americans struggling with rising prices and a slowing economy, but on the other, any unilateral measures he might take risk making the inflation problem even worse. On Wednesday, the US president is travelling to Cleveland, Ohio, as he refocuses

Norway’s Equinor is temporarily shutting down three oil and gasfields after workers went on strike, intensifying regional supply troubles and pushing European gas prices to a four-month high. The strikes that began on Monday evening will affect 89,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day of production at fields on Norway’s continental shelf. The trade union

The writer is the author of ‘The Secret Barrister’ A criminal barrister refusing to attend court is akin to a doctor refusing to treat a patient. It strikes at the heart of everything that we stand for. Yet as the Criminal Bar moves into a second week of unprecedented industrial action, courts across the UK

From their top-floor flat Lithuanian couple Vidas and Andželika Micuta can watch the soldiers patrol on the other side of the fenced-off stream that separates their country from the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad. “It used to feel nice here, because you don’t have cars driving past and no other noise when you live so close

The European Central Bank will shift the corporate bonds it owns and accepts as collateral away from the most carbon-intensive companies, going further than most big rate-setting authorities but disappointing activists eager to see stronger measures. Announcing plans to “tilt” its €386bn portfolio of corporate bonds away from companies with “a poorer climate performance”, the

The European energy crisis can help boost a much-needed EU integration. Winston Churchill said, “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” The EU is facing one of the most serious crises in its history because of Russia’s war on Ukraine and the worst energy crisis since 1973. However, the invasion has prompted an unprecedented

The European Central Bank is looking at ways to stop banks earning billions of euros of extra profit from the ultra-cheap lending scheme it launched during the pandemic once it starts to raise interest rates later this month. The €2.2tn of subsidised loans provided by the ECB to banks helped to avert a credit crunch